The present invention relates to an improvement to the device for locking and releasing objects intended for public use, particularly objects intended to be put at the public's disposal free of charge, such as luggage carts in a railway station or an airport, shopping trolleys in a self-service store, which objects the public can take directly from a common stowage space and must be taken back to the said stowage space, which device is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 515,372 filed on July 18, 1983 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,538.
There is already known a device including a locking apparatus allowing each object to be automatically locked to the adjacent object or to a fixed point in stowed position, into which locking apparatus is introduced a coin or the like authorizing the unlocking of the locking apparatus and the release of the object by exerting a pull thereon, said locking apparatus being designed to return the said coin when the object is returned to the stowage space and locked to an adjacent object or to a fixed point, and the unlocking is obtained by the said pull, which ensures successively the unblocking of the locking apparatus and the release of the said object. The locking apparatus includes particularly a slide which is movable under the action of the said pull and fixable by an internal locking member which is movable to a non-blocking position by coming into contact with the edge of the said coin, the said slide serving to lock or unlock the lock connecting the object to an adjacent object or to a fixed point.
However, such a device suffers from a disadvantage which consists in that the introduction of a coin does not allow unlocking an intermediate object from a line of objects locked to one another, for all the front and rear clearances of the intermediate object are insufficient and even eliminated.